This invention relates to an electrical junction box to be mounted on a motor vehicle or the like and more particularly relates to an electrical junction box that includes a structure that can hold an unused fuse.
Heretofore, electrical circuits in a motor vehicle or the like are provided with fuses that prevent overcurrents. The fuses are assembled and arranged in an electrical junction box such as a fuse box. When any one of fuses is melted by the overcurrents, the melted fuse must be replaced with a new fuse in the electrical junction box. When a dark current circuit such as a watch that consumes an electrical power all the time is shut off, a dark current fuse must be removed from a fuse mounting section.
Currently, a particular electrical junction box has been proposed. The particular electrical junction box includes a casing body provided with an unused fuse containing section that houses an unused fuse such as a spare fuse, a dark current fuse removed temporarily, or the like. Such electrical junction box has been disclosed in, for example, JP HEI 11(1999)-69569 A [Patent Document 1] and JP HEI 8(1996)-195161 A [Patent Document 2].
However, the electrical junction box disclosed in the above Patent Documents holds the unused fuse in an unused fuse containing section firmly in order to prevent the unused fuse from being disconnected on account of vibrations from the vehicle by using a locking mechanism (Patent Document 1) or by forming the unused fuse containing section from a special-purpose holding member (Patent Document 2). Consequently, there were some problems that a work of attaching and detaching the fuse to and from the electrical junction box or that an undue force is applied to the fuse, which may damage the fuse. When the fuse is removed from the unused fuse containing section, a special tool such as a fuse puller or a jig has been often required.
In the case where the electrical junction box is disposed in an engine room, because the engine room is narrow in space, a cover member must be applied to the casing body when opening and closing the cover member to exchange the fuses. Consequently, there have been problems that the cover member collides with the fuse to cause the fuse to fall down or to be broken.